


Endless Nights

by nirejseki, robininthelabyrinth (nirejseki)



Series: Flashwave Week 2018 (Destiny Series) [4]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: All the Endless, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Destiny of the Endless - Freeform, M/M, Multi, philosophical musings, sandman - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-26 01:23:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14989688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/robininthelabyrinth
Summary: Despite his nature as Destiny of the Endless, He Who Reads the Word That Is All Things, Len generally doesn't read ahead.He likes to think that's why his siblings, the others of the Endless, like him: because he loves them, and he trusts them, and because of that he does not monitor them.That's probably why he misses the moment where they all decide to conspire against him.





	Endless Nights

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. I follow in the footsteps of those before me in that I couldn't resist the title.

Despite his nature as Destiny of the Endless, He Who Reads the Word That Is All Things, Len generally doesn't read ahead. 

Oh, his predecessor had - people thought the Endless were just that, the Endless, but then Morpheus had had a hissy fit and then they had Daniel and now everyone is aware that the Endless can be replaced, though for some reason they always seem to exempt Destiny and Death from that analysis - but Len's predecessor had been a boring old fart who thought he was the universe's gift to itself. 

Predestination, _really_.

Ridiculous.

Just because you _can_ doesn't mean you _should_. Or even _want to_ , for that matter! It seems like existence would be hideously boring like that, never being surprised by anything, even if Len does have access to all the stories of all the world, excluding only the infinite multitude of stories that were stored in Daniel's Dreamworld. 

No, Len prefers to keep himself at the present, or maybe a few pages ahead, and makes no secret of it; and in return he likes to think that his siblings appreciate him more than they had his stiff and formal predecessor.

(the seven Endless are always siblings, even if they are not always bound by such mortal things blood, and always in the same order: Destiny first, then Death, then Dream, Desire, Despair, Destruction, and finally Delight or Delirium, depending on her mood)

His siblings, too, are new. Daniel has been Dream the longest, thought by tradition Len remains the eldest, and although Daniel wears the thousand faces of the Dream King, he rather prefers to craft himself new forms and new lives and comes to Len's garden to beg for a Word to help slip him into the narrative of Destiny unnoticed. 

His current favored form is a baby-faced inventor of a thousand enthusiasms called Francisco Ramon; the one before had been called Harrison Wells. 

Len likes Daniel, or Cisco, or Harrison, or however he wishes to be called: he is kind when he can be, and fair when not, but more importantly he is old enough to have seen the changing of the fates.

He was there when Len, still then a mortal, gave his life in an explosion to undo a knot of time he'd found and found himself thrown into the prior Destiny's garden, a guest at his table and a prisoner. For all of his arrogance, for all his talk of predestination, of inescapable fate, the prior Destiny had feared that which sat at his table and sought to keep him, so as to forestall his own end: it didn't work, of course, and the prior Destiny should have known it wouldn't. 

He really should have known: after all, Len hadn't even thought about stealing from Destiny until he'd been imprisoned, and even if he had, he wouldn't have chosen the book chained to his wrists if not for that intolerable insult.

In the most classic of ways, Destiny begat Destiny.

(all the world's oracles sighed in silent gratification, and slept dreamless and voiceless for once)

And when Len rose up, made anew - the book chained to his wrist now, his blind eyes unable to see anything but the Word, but that Word now his and his alone - he sensed Her come to take his predecessor by the hand to lead him into the dark. 

Death.

The old Death, rather: she favored the look of a Goth, white makeup and black kohl and an ankh for eternity, he knows that by instinct and the memories of words already written. That same memory tells him that she smiled at him, kind. 

"You have no idea how long I've been waiting for you."

Those were the only words she ever said to him.

And Len, whose hands were on his Book, whose Destiny was in his own hands for the first time in his life, understood.

Destiny and Death are the closest of the Endless, and they alone must always be kin: for first there is the Word, and with the Word the Reader, and once there is the Reader (a Destiny) who lives, there must also be Death. 

But for every Destiny, a _different_ Death.

The mantle of Destiny can only be taken by a thief in the night, but Death, who loves everyone, can only be replaced by love.

(and Leonard Snart had a sister)

(correction: Leonard Snart _has_ a sister)

Lisa Snart had a choice, of course, but if she hadn't been willing to make that choice, Len's Destiny would never have been. 

Lisa Snart is a Death as unlike her own predecessor as Len fancies he is of his: a Death not of darkness, but of glowing gold, warm and bright and brilliant.

Lisa is, of course, Len's favorite sibling.

But very shortly behind her is Mick.

Len and Lisa were still clinging to each other in the Garden of Destiny, their new roles shaking them to their marrow, when Mick came to them, a smile on his face and a raging fire in his wake: himself quite new, having emerged only a short while before, if time can so be calculated for beings whose existence stretches across eons. 

Mick was the one who showed them their next steps, not Daniel (kind Daniel, arrogant Daniel, Daniel who was lost in his realm of dreams), and for that alone Len would love him.

But Mick is so much more than merely Destruction: he is rebirth and revival, the will to keep going onwards, and more important than all of that besides, he is Len's best friend. 

Destiny, Death, Dream, and Destruction: the eldest four out of the seven.

As is only appropriate (destined, one might say, and Len does, often, with glee), Len met the twins next.

Well, sort of. He has to endure the old versions for a while: Desire of the many forms and a subtle but ever-present malicious arrogance, Despair of the naked trudging sloth.

He likes the new versions much better.

They came together, as all twins do: the White and the Black, goodness and evil evenly distributed but different as particles of daylight.

Sara and Laurel, they were called, but it was easy enough to slip into calling Sara Desire and Laurel Despair. Sara, who wants everything with a never-sated hunger; Laurel with a smile pasted on over the empty yawning pit within her.

And when they were comfortable in their skins again (desire and despair both), Len called a family meeting.

He didn't particularly want to, but it was necessary.

They gathered, all of them, Daniel and Mick and Len and Lisa and Sara and Laurel, and they waited.

Delirium arrived late, laughing as she always did.

When she got to her seat at the table, she stopped. 

She stared.

She looked around.

"Oh," she said. "I'm the only one left."

And with that, she popped out of existence. 

"What," Mick said.

"Had to happen," Len said, apologetically.

"Excuse me," Lisa said, and scurried away from the table to do her duty.

"But we can't be without a Delirium," Laurel objected.

"Or a Delight," Sara purrs. 

"There will be a replacement," Daniel said confidently. Then he hesitated. "Right?"

"Um," a meek new voice says from the doorway. "Is this the right place, right?"

Caitlin is a lovely Delight, and Frost is an equally lovely Delirium. 

Nothing like the old one. 

For one thing, they swapped between each other far more often, Delight acknowledging the presence of Delirium and Delirium allowing for the presence of Delight, and it worked for them. 

Len's family.

He loves them, and he trusts them, and because of that he does not monitor them.

That's probably why he misses the moment where they all decide to conspire against him.

* * *

"You're in my bed," Len says. He doesn't need eyes to know where everything is within his Garden realm.

"I know," Mick says.

"I'm ace."

"I know."

"Why are you in my bed, then?"

"I know."

"That wasn't a question that can be answered by 'I know', Mick."

Mick grins. "I know."

" _Mick_."

Mick laughs and rises from the bed. "I wanted to get your attention. I've found him."

"Found - him?" Len ruffles through the pages, looking for backstory. "Oh, your newest lover. Barry, is it?"

"That's how he prefers to be called," Mick agrees. "Better than 'Speed Force'."

"I've never met the Speed Force," Len says. "He warps time and fate, doesn't he?"

"Like no one else," Mick says proudly. "That's why he's perfect for you and me."

"Perfect..?"

"Yeah - Destruction and Destiny! Perfect for the Speed Force, which is always bumbling around fucking up fate left and right."

"I mean, by reputation, yes, that seems accurate," Len says. "But - perfect for what?"

"To be ours," Mick says.

Len frowns. "Did I mention that I'm ace?"

"Several times," Mick agrees, entirely unperturbed.

"So..?"

"I'm not asking you to have _sex_ with him," Mick says haughtily. "I'll handle that part, and very well, too, thank you very much. But he can't just be mine - you know what happens to my lovers."

Mick means well, he always means well, but he is Destruction, inescapable. 

He leaves only ruin in his wake.

"And you think I can help with that?" Len asks skeptically. The Endless cannot step on each other's domains, not with ease, and although Len is the eldest and the strongest, it is not a contest he would willingly engage in. "Why?"

"Because I want someone I can keep," Mick says, "and you need someone who can change you. Besides, you're ace, yes, but you've never fully ruled out the possibility of romance."

"Well, yes, but -"

"Settled, then."

"It is _not_."

"I'll go tell him the good news."

"Mick, I haven't _agreed_ -"

"You will. It's, you know, _Destined_ or however that happens."

"And how would _you_ know anything about that?! Mick -"

"See you!"

"Mick!"

* * *

"You'll like him," Sara says confidently.

Len points a finger at her - not his dangerous pointer finger, the one he uses to read, but the finger right beside it, so as better to convey the fullness of his feelings on the subject. "Desire, you will _not_."

"I won't!" Sara says, playing at injured. "But you will, you know. Like him, that is."

"Desire..."

"I'm not meddling. You'd know at once if I was meddling and be able to resist it-"

The privilege of being the eldest.

Len appreciates it more each day.

"-but that doesn't mean I don't _know_ things. I _am_ Desire, after all, and you being ace doesn't mean you escape my grasp, thank you very much, even if you get it in a different way."

"I know you are, and I know that fact," Len says patiently. "I'm not questioning your competency in your field, that's for sure. Though I _am_ questioning what you're doing here, in my Garden, instead of out - doing whatever it is you do."

He knows what she does. He knows what _everybody_ does.

That's not the point, and Sara knows it.

Sara laughs. The sound makes Len crave...

Garlic breadsticks?

"Desire," he says sternly. " _No meddling_."

"It's just my sparkling personality! But seriously, what did you want just then? You always have the weirdest reactions - I think it's because you're one of the Endless. It never works right on Lisa, either."

"I don't need to think about you and Lisa, Desire."

"Lisa's my favorite sibling," Sara says wistfully. "Well, she’s everyone’s favorite, right alongside Delight-Delirium, but still, I like to think we have a real bond. We both have to serve the whole world."

"Still don't need to think about you and Lisa, Desire."

"Oh, come on, isn't it all in that book of yours?"

"In excruciating detail, yes. Go away."

"Awww, but _Lenny_ -"

"You are not Lisa."

"Fine. _Len_. Just listen -"

"Still no. Go away."

"Ugh, _fine_. But I'm telling you, you _will_ like him!"

* * *

"This is going to be so much fun!" Frost chants. She's taught herself to make ice bridges, created seemingly out of the air, to carry her around him in dizzying circles; he can feel the chill of them.

Len carefully makes sure that she doesn't touch any of his pages. They don't need another Dancing Plague anytime soon.

"You're going to be happy," Caitlin whispers in his ear, smiling. She's in a good mood. "Oh, Len..."

"I don't know how Mick has gotten you in on this," Len says crossly, "but I won't have it."

"You need to lighten up," Frost cackles.

Len gives in to the force of Frost's personality and lets himself be floated up to the ceiling, waiting patiently until Frost gets bored and lets him down again.

"You could just look ahead, you know," she says, pouting at him. "Your book has it down already - and you'd know if it was or wasn't so."

"I don't want to spoil the surprise."

"So you know there _is_ a surprise! You're just holding out in _anticipation_!"

Len opens his mouth to object, because it won't be a surprise if there's no risk of the surprise being a bad one, then remembers that it's utterly pointless to argue with Frost, and rarely much more productive to argue with Caitlin, either. 

"Go away," he says.

She - whichever one of her it is - smiles and flounces away.

Len waits until he can no longer feel her presence.

He glances at the Book that he always holds. He knows exactly where he would need to flip to, if he wanted to look...

No. That pathway leads to boredom and being predictable.

Len's always preferred free will.

He'll wait and see.

* * *

Laurel walks into his Garden.

"No," Len says. " _Absolutely not_."

She shrugs, and walks back out.

Fair enough.

* * *

Destiny does not sleep, strictly speaking, but Len occasionally indulges in a little shut-eye just for fun.

He is, in this instance, utterly unsurprised to find himself in his brother's smiling company.

He's wearing the Cisco face again, though the green stone shining from where it hangs from his neck is a clear giveaway. 

"Let me guess," Len says dryly. "This Barry guy's great, I'll love him, I should just give in now and accept a polyamorous relationship with him and Mick?"

"Would you really accept Mick having any relationship - a serious relationship, not one of his flings - where you weren't involved?" Cisco asks in reply.

Len frowns.

"That isn't the point," he temporizes.

"It kinda is, man," Cisco says. "You and Mick, you're practically joined at the hip - it's throwing everyone into a frenzy, you know."

"A frenzy?"

"Destiny and Death? Classic combo. It's nice and traditional, you two having your own little _thing_ and the rest of us trying to catch up - or, usually, looking to me, which never goes well for anyone." He shrugs unselfconsciously. No one is more aware of Dream's failings than the he who replaced Morpheus. "Destiny and Destruction being close, though? That's a whole new ballgame. People are talking end times."

"People are always talking end times," Len says dismissively, then adds, not without some real irritation, "And why does everyone always forget that Mick stands for _positive_ destruction as well? Sometimes you can't make progress unless you tear down what's been built up before - the Roman Senate, the _ancien_ regime, slavery, institutionalized bigotry -"

Cisco holds up his hands. "Don't get me wrong, big bro, I totally agree with you. Besides, if you ever let more people into your Garden -"

Over Len's immortal dead body.

"- then they'd realize what it _really_ means, Destiny and Destruction being close, and then they'd freak out _even more_."

"What it really means?"

"We're the Endless," Cisco says. "Who we are and what we are and what the universe itself is, that's all so bound up together that there's no one without the other. You and Mick, being friends - it has an impact. On you, on him, on the universe."

Len arches his eyebrows. This isn't exactly news.

"Free will," Cisco says with a relish. "That's what it means. You're the most radical pro-free will Destiny in - well, probably since the beginning. The _real_ beginning. And when all those gods and all those systems and all those institutions realize that you're not going to be holding the flood of change back? That far from sitting in your Garden reading people into their nice predictable river pathways, you're going to tear open the dam of fate itself and let everyone face the consequences of their own decisions? When they figure out that the Book of Destiny itself is being Read by a freaking _anarchist_? Yeah. Total panic."

Len can't help but smile, just a little, denying exactly none of it.

"That's why this Barry guy's gonna be good for you," Cisco adds. "He'll make things even more chaotic, bending reality and time itself back and forth, and he won't stand for anything getting in his way: no force, no injustice, nothing."

That...actually did sound rather appealing, damnit. 

"He'll fit in just right with Mick," Cisco says thoughtfully. "All that destruction. But he's the Speed Force - he was made for more than just destruction. He was made to _change things, permanently, to birth an age of heroes and stories like no other -"_

"Suddenly I see where _your interest in this comes from."_

"Okay, fine, you caught me. The dreams we'd get if we lived in a world of walking legends...it'd be amazing. But that doesn't change the fact that both Barry and Mick need _you_ to do more than just tear things down. Barry needs you to make his changes permanent."

"I can do that without dating him," Len points out. "Him or Mick. Besides, Mick's my _brother_."

"You've always been closer than brothers and you know it," Cisco objects. "Listen, just - think about it, yeah? This Barry guy, he's good. He's _your_ type of good. You'll like him. And what it'll do for the universe -"

"I don't make decisions on behalf of the universe, _Daniel_ ," Len says. No one knows the perils of arrogance more than Morpheus’ successor, but sometimes he forgets. "Not more than I have to. That's the _point_ of free will. Now let me wake up."

Cisco's face shimmers and stretches into Daniel's pale white features, features that Len can even imagine that he can see if he tries hard enough, and even in Len's imagining Daniel looks disappointed. "If you're sure. I could let you linger in Dreamworld longer, if you like - maybe show you the newest bit of L-space we've discovered in the Library - the Librarian is an ape -"

"No."

Daniel sighs. "As you wish, brother."

Len woke up.

* * *

He's reading a football match into existence - a good one, hard fought and well-played, the ball constantly in motion on feet and heads, classic match-up, twenty-two men chase a ball for ninety minutes and then Germany wins as the old joke goes - when Lisa walks in, high heels and golden glow.

Len finishes the match - it'd be a pity to leave it in suspense - and then looks up at his baby sister, who has become Death, destroyer of worlds.

Quite literally, in her case.

He smiles at her.

(He wishes sometimes that he could see her face once more.)

"Barry Allen," she says, not bothering with subtleties.

"Not you too!" Len exclaims. 

"Mick thinks you've decided against him," she says. "It makes him sad, like you don't trust him."

"I'd trust him with my Book," Len says honestly, and the most terrifying part of that is that it's true, especially knowing what Len knows of Mick's nature. 

"Then go meet this lover."

"He doesn't just want me to _meet_ him."

Lisa studies him. "Why are you so resistant to this?" she asks. "You've always loved Mick. This Barry will only add to that love, not take it away."

"I know. But -"

"Are you just being stubborn, or are you actually afraid?"

Len hesitates.

"He won't take Mick away from you," Lisa adds, quiet. "And you know it: if you were really afraid, you would've read ahead to confirm. But you believe in free will, and you want Mick to choose freely, even if that choice isn't you."

Len presses his lips together.

"Mick's in love with this Barry," he says, after a few long moments of silence. He had glanced ahead far enough to see _that_. 

"Yes," Lisa says. "And if you stop being an idiot, so will you, and he'll love you both back. Now go and meet him already!"

Any of the others he would have told to fuck off - and has.

But not his Lise. 

"Fine," he says, surrendering. "I'll meet him."

* * *

Barry Allen, the Speed Force, is everything they all said and more.

Mick loves him.

Len loves him, too.

(Damn them all for being right.)

They're going to change _everything_.


End file.
